RetroClips

Seven Chances closes with one of the most celebrated physical sequences in silent comedy: Buster Keaton, fleeing an ever-growing mob, stumbles into a real avalanche of boulders and has to outrun them down an actual hillside. Keaton did the stunt himself with no safety rigging, dodging a mix of real rocks and oversized papier-mache boulders built to roll convincingly at speed, and the sequence was reportedly added only after a test screening got a bigger laugh from an accidental rockslide than anything else in the film. It's been cited by directors from Jackie Chan to Edgar Wright as a benchmark for what practical stunt comedy can do.